THE ART OF ACTING

Very early on in my career as an actor, I found that ordinary acting could be taught. In its higher forms, no. I agree it cannot. I earned a fair living as a provincial touring actor for some ten or eleven years. I had little knowledge and less skill when I started, but in ten or eleven years I learned a good deal about my profession. I have seen young actors and actresses without the smallest apparent suitabil­ity for their profession, young people who appear to be handicapped in almost every direction, subsequently revealing unusual talent and registering great success. There are many instances on record where players started with most unfortunate and unhappy begin­nings, to finish up in a blaze of glory. The famous comedian Charles Wyndham made liis first appearance in Washington in 1864 under the management of a very celebrated actress, Mrs John Wood. At a certain point in the play he had to go through a love scene with her. In this he was to begin with some such words as these — “Dearest, I am drunk with that enthusiasm of love which but once in a lifetime fills the soul of man.”

All that nervousness permitted the young actor to say was — “Dearest, I am drunk.”

The theatre resounded with shouts of laughter and the scene came to a sudden conclusion. In the New York Herald next day were the words “Mr Wyndham, who represented a young man from South America, had better go to that country himself,” and Mr Wyndham’s services as an actor came to an abrupt finish. Two years later he made another attempt, this time fortunately, with better success. Even­tually he developed, as. the world knows, into one of the finest come­dians of his age, and the proprietor and director of three London’s principal theatres.

Sir Henry Irving, in the early.stages of his brilliant career, had to cope for at least five years of his life, with every physical obstacle with which an actor could be handicapped. He spoke with a combina­tion of nasal and guttural indistinctness; in walking he dragged one foot painfully after the other; his mannerisms were so many and so irritating that he provoked continuous ridicule; but by hard work, immense perseverance, concentration of power, he triumphed over every one of his difficulties, and forced himself by sheer character and intellectual brilliance into the position of indisputed leader of the English stage. On the 1st February, 1895, he delivered an address on the Art of Acting to the members of the Royal Institu­tion. Here is a remark he made to Ellen Terry — “How strange it is that I should have made the reputation I have as an actor with nothing to help me. My looks, my voice, everything has been against me. For an actor who could not walk, cannot talk, and has no face to speak of I have done pretty well.”

Good actors need brains to comprehend their tasks, because without correct understanding there can obviously be no correct interpretation and Sir Henry Irving was one of the ablest men of his time. All the great actors I have known have achieved distinction and preeminence in their profession because of the advantage they possessed in the way of extra mental capacity. [...]

There was a time when all London rang with the praises of Miss Vivien Leigh as one of Sydney Carroll’s “discoveries”. I had the for­tune to encounter Miss Leigh on the threshold of her career, a young girl whose mental balance equalled her physical poise, one who brought a divine sense of humour to meet the many vicissitudes and setbacks of the acting business, a girl of singular beauty and rare personality.

Some players, true enough, are-indifferent conversationalists, but then, again, so are many literary men. Oliver Goldsmith is not the sole example of a craft that may write like angels yet “talk like poor poll”.

Brains and good acting always go together. How often have I seen otherwise first-class actors fail terribly in their careers because they were utter fools! The fool may make one triumph. It takes a wise man to go on repeating the experience.